1115.org

If you have been thinking all this time — as many Iraqis apparently do — that Nouri al-Maliki is essentially an American puppet, whose installation as Prime Minister of Iraq was scripted and presided over by good old us, you are apparently seriously confused about the realities of the ground in Iraq. (In fact,you would probably benefit from one of those trips to Iraq that John “Market Stroll” McCain is so fond of prescribing.)

Because the right is now discovering that while Maliki is indeed a stooge, he’s a stooge not of the U.S. but of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He’s also a Contributing Editor of National Review Online. And here’s what he contributed to NRO’s The Corner yesterday:

The Times indicates that, after Maliki’s interview comments in Der Spiegel became known, U.S. diplomats complained. Only then did an Iraqi government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, issue a statement claiming Maliki’s words had been “misunderstood and mistranslated.” But not only did Dabbagh fail to explain specifically what Spiegel had supposedly gotten wrong in its rendering of the interview, which is on tape. The Times further reports:
[T]he interpreter for the interview works for Mr. Maliki’s office, not the magazine. And in an audio recording of Mr. Maliki’s interview that Der Spiegel provided to The New York Times, Mr. Maliki seemed to state a clear affinity for Mr. Obama’s position, bringing it up on his own in an answer to a general question on troop presence.

As I’ve mentioned before, Maliki, of the Shiite Dawa Party which opposed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq in the first place, has long-standing ties to Iran and Syria — and has expressed support for Hezbollah. The only thing that surprises me about this story is that anyone is surprised.

Maybe McCarthy could also have mustered up some surprise at how the forces of darkness were able to sneak in someone with such well known affinities for Iran, Syria and Hezbollah as Prime Minister of Iraq?